Hunton Employment & Labor Perspectives

In a recent case called Southwest Regional Council of Carpenters (New Star General Contractors, Inc.), the National Labor Relations Board upheld a fairly common Union street tactic of calling attention to the Union’s dispute with a so-called “primary” employer by displaying a large banner in front of the worksite of a “secondary” employer who happens to be utilizing workers from the “primary” employer. Typically, the dispute between the Union and the “primary” employer is over the “primary” employer’s failure to use Union workers or pay Union-scale wages. By publicly advertising its dispute with banners in front of the “secondary” employer, the Union hopes to “shame” the “secondary” employer. 

In response to President Obama’s re-nomination of Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board, all forty-seven Republicans in the U.S. Senate submitted a letter to Mr. Obama on February 1 urging him to withdraw Becker’s nomination.  Becker’s July 2009 nomination to the Board failed in the Senate in the spring of 2010, but the President gave Becker a controversial recess appointment that allows him to serve from his swearing-in on April 5, 2010 until the end of the Senate’s 2011 session, despite the Senate’s rejection of his nomination.  President Obama’s re-nomination of Becker, if successful, would allow Becker to serve until December 16, 2014.

Thursday, February 24, 2011
12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m. CST

The program will provide an overview of the current state of the health care reform legislation, including the political climate, recent and expected legislative activity, litigation questioning the constitutionality of the law, and a practical look at what employers, group health plans, and health care providers should be doing now.

On January 4, 2011, President Obama signed the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), which seeks to promote food safety by enacting strict safety standards in the food industry. In addition to the enactment of safety standards, Section 402 of the FSMA ensures sweeping protections for whistleblowers in the industry. The FSMA whistleblower protection applies to any “entity engaged in the manufacture, processing, packing, transporting, distribution, reception, holding, or importation of food.” The anti-retaliation provisions protect any employee of a covered entity who provides to the employer, the federal government, or the Attorney General of a State information that the employee reasonably believes constitutes a violation of the FSMA; testifies or is about to testify about any such violation; assists or participates in any such proceeding; or objects to or refuses to participate in any activity that the employee reasonably believes is a violation of the FSMA.